Last year, Apple ranked as one of the top companies in the first quarter of the year. But now, the company is already having its setback when it comes to the iPhone’s market in United States.

According to the International Data Corporation or IDC, Apple is still at the second rank as the leading maker of smartphone. The first on the list is still the Blackberry franchise. Unfortunately, according to Ramon Llamas, an analyst from IDC, Apple lost its market share at RIM’s and Palm’s expense.

The market share of RIM was 35.1% in the 4th quarter. Then it went up to 44.5% in the 1st quarter. On the other hand, Apple had a 26.7% market share in the 4th quarter which dropped to 19.2% in the 1st quarter.

While Palm Centro only had 7.9% in the 4th quarter, it had an amazing increase which went up to 13.4% in the 1st quarter. Ranking on the fourth is Samsung with 8.6% of market share and HTC on the fifth with 4.1% of market share.

Apple also revealed that they have sold at least 1.7 million units of iPhone on the first quarter. The figures decreased from 2.3 million iPhones that was sold during the last quarter of last year.

There are no definite reasons why Apple’s market share declined. Others say that probably it is because of Palm’s and RIM’s pursuit of smartphone consumers. RIM offers high end gadgets such as the Pearl and the Curve. On the other hand, Palm has the low end device with the Centro.

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